Canadian Culture: To Protect or Not to Protect?

Peter Grant and Chris Wood and their editor must have agonized over an appropriate title for Blockbusters and Trade Wars: Popular Culture in a Globalized World. They might have chosen “Blockbusters and the Cultural Tool Kit,” which would have covered the middle part of the book, comprising almost half of its 420 fine-type pages. Just within this portion, it would be hard to find among Canadian writings on public policy a more comprehensive description of the various regulatory measures employed by governments in Canada and other countries to support domestic culture against the pervasive United States entertainment juggernaut spewing American culture into export markets.

Or, focusing on the third part of the book, the authors might have entitled their work “The Rocky Road Toward a New International Instrument for Cultural Diversity.” Here Grant and Wood lay the groundwork toward a global solution, a new direction for protecting and promoting local culture...